Who Is This "We"? Levels of Collective Identity and Self Representations

Marilynn B. Brewer*, Wendi Gardner

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2379 Scopus citations

Abstract

Cross-cultural perspectives have brought renewed interest in the social aspects of the self and the extent to which individuals define themselves in terms of their relationships to others and to social groups. This article provides a conceptual review of research and theory of the social self, arguing that the personal, relational, and collective levels of self-definition represent distinct forms of self-representation with different origins, sources of self-worth, and social motivations. A set of 3 experiments illustrates how priming of the interpersonal or collective "we" can alter spontaneous judgments of similarity and self-descriptions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)83-93
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of personality and social psychology
Volume71
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1996

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Psychology
  • Sociology and Political Science

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